Film analysis

The three films I chose to analyse were High school musical, Heathers and Mean Girls as they all have similar settings to my FMP and either are, or were adapted into a musical, like what I'm basing my FMP on.

Characters: In High School Musical all of the characters are mostly stereotypes such as athletes or nerds but the two protagonists (Troy and Gabriella) are different as they are two people who would normally not talk to each other or interact at all but in a new years party they meet and both notice that they can both sing, which then changes what people might think about the characters as they aren't stereotypes like the other characters who we later find out each have their own interests, like a sporty kid who bakes and a since kid who likes to dance.  The reason Troy and Gabriella are the protagonists is that they are the people who help encourage the change of the status quo of each of the communities at the school by ignoring the people telling them that they have to stay in their roles and auditioning for the school musical which annoys the antagonists.  The antagonists are a pair of sibling who wants everyone to stick to their own groups and be the centre of attention in the school musical, they are the antagonists as they try to force people into their stereotypes and try to ruin the auditions for the main characters.

The characters in Heathers are different as most of the characters are horrible in some way.  The protagonist for this film is Veronica Sawyer who has just joined the most popular group of people in her school and we realise that the "Leader" of the group is horrible to everyone and even treats people in the group horribly which makes us dislike her, at the start we also meet Jason Dean who is the love interest for Veronica.  Similar to High School Musical Heathers was two protagonists, the first is Heather Chandler who is the "Leader" of the popular group and the second is Jason Dean who throughout the film becomes more mean and ruthless as he poisons Heather with drain cleaner and shoots one of the jocks that torment him and getting Veronica to shoot the other.  Veronica is the protagonist as she spends most of the movie trying to help people who were hurt and reconnect with people she abandoned to become popular and at the end she saves the school by stopping Jason from using explosives to blow up the school with everyone inside.  I think these characters are different to the ones in High School Musical as in that film even the antagonists are a bit nice and don't do anything to harm anyone else and all of the characters are cheerful and nice but in Heathers most of the characters are horrible to people and spread rumours or commit murder.

The characters in mean girls are quite similar to the characters in Heathers as the protagonist is a girl who becomes part of the coolest group in the school who then becomes mean, realises their mistakes and then fixes it and the main antagonists are a group of three girls who are the people in their group.  At the start of the film protagonist Cady Heron has just moved to a new school from being home schooled by her parents in Africa and befriends two people who help show her around the school and get used to the new environment, which leads to her finding out about a group of girls in the school called "the plastics" who befriend her and make her part of the group.  The head of the plastics is Regina George who is horrible to everyone, including her friends, is the antagonist as she purposely does things to hurt and Cady and other students.  As part of a plan to get back at Regina for all of the horrible stuff they say Cady befriends the plastics and is secretly trying to ruin how everyone sees Regina but in doing so she becomes more and more like her and she doesn't realise until she has hurt her friends and been as horrible to Regina as Regina had been to her.  Cady is the protagonist as, after she realises what she has become, she takes the fall for everything that happened and works hard to repair the relationships that she had ruined.

Settings:  All of these films share the same setting, high school.  It is this setting that give all of the characters a reason to interact in all of the films as without it, there would be no school musical for people to take part in and no social hierarchy that the characters want to be the top of, it gives them a reason to be around each other all the time as it is somewhere that they have to be in 5 days a week. It is also the source of all of the conflict as without it the characters wouldn't be interacting, Veronica and Cady wouldn't have become mean to stay with a group and all of conflict in High School Musical wouldn't happen because there wouldn't have been any problems as they are all to do with the setting.

Storylines: All of the movies have a linear storyline where everything happens in order, with no flashbacks or flashforwards.

In act 1 of High School Musical we meet the two protagonists, Troy and Gabriella, as they interact for the first time at a new years party where they are both forced to sing karaoke together and notice that they are both good singers.  We then see that Gabriella has just moved into the same school as Troy and they talk and joke about signing up for the school musical, as they do this they are approached by one of the pair of people who are the heads of the drama club.  Later we see that Troy, who is the team leader of their School's basketball team, struggles to focus when training as he is thinking about how much fun auditioning for the musical would be as he had enjoyed singing at the new years party but is reluctant as he is supposed to be the sporty kid.

In act 2 we see Troy go to great lengths to try to avoid being seen as he goes to watch the auditions for the musical, where he bumps into Gabriella who was also there to watch, she then announces that she would like to audition and Troy offers to be her partner and after hearing them sing the drama teacher gives call backs to the heads of the drama club, who were expecting to go unopposed, as well as Troy and Gabriella.  After word gets around the school that Troy auditioned of the musical everyone starts sharing their secret hobbies, like baking and dancing, which freaks out some of the people in the school.  Troy and Gabriella's friends then plan to try and separate them to try to fix what they thought was a problem and after accomplishing what they set out to do, they realise the mistake they made as Troy's focus on sports becomes worse.  They explain what they did and Troy and Gabriella decide to continue with the audition.

Act 3 starts with the heads of the drama club getting the teacher to change the date of the call backs to be at the same time as a big basketball game and Gabriella's academic decathlon but after some planning by Troy, Gabriella and their friends they manage to make it to the audition and get the role, as well as winning their separate competitions.

In act 1 of Heathers we are introduced to the Heathers and veronica and see their social standing in their school, as well as how they treat the other students and how Heather Chandler treats everyone in the group,  we also meet Jason Dean who introduces himself by pulling a gun out on two bullies who were harassing him and fires two blanks at them, on her way to a party Veronica is picking up food and runs into JD at the shop and begin to talk before she has to then go.  At that party Veronica and Heather Chandler have a fight which ends with Veronica vomiting all over Heather and telling her to "lick it up".  She later realises her mistake and her and JD start a relationship.  In the morning the two of them go to Heather's house and Veronica tries to save herself from Heather ruining her at school and tries to make her a hangover cure, JD jokes about giving her drain cleaner and then doesn't tell Veronica when she picks up the wrong drink and gives it to Heather.

Act 2 starts with Heather Chandler dying because she drunk drain cleaner and Veronica and JD making it look like a suicide so that they don't get accused of murdering her.  Heather Duke, the person who normally was Heather Chandler's main target to insult in the group proceeded to then fill her shoes as the "leader" of the group.  After Veronica does a favour to Heather McNamara and goes on a double date with her and the two jocks that were harassing JD at the start the two jocks spread false rumours about what happened that night, annoying Veronica and JD.  JD comes up with the idea of using "ich luge" bullets which make it look like the person who was shot is dead when they aren't and make it look like the two jocks had committed suicide because they had to hide their secret relationship.  When they put the plan into motion Veronica realises they were real bullets and that they just killed two people and disguised it as a suicide again. It  is at this point that the audience and Veronica see that JD horrible and wanted to continue to kill.

Act 3 starts with Veronica dumping JD and trying to reconnect with some of the old friends she had before she became popular which gets interrupted when Heather Duke appears talking about how someone who they had made fun of at the start had tried to kill themselves but were unsuccessful and says it was her trying to "act like the popular kids and failing miserably" which Veronica is horrified by, both characters then learn that Heather McNamara has been struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, Heather the spreads this around the school leading to Veronica stopping her from committing suicide at school and realising she isn't as horrible as the others.  Veronica then finds out that JD is planning on blowing up the school with everyone in it to send a message.  She then tries to stop him and a fight ensues and Veronica shoots him and he disables the explosives, Veronica then walks out of the school only to find JD survived and was standing outside wearing the explosives, the two talk and then JD sets of the explosives, killing himself and scaring the students.  The film ends with Veronica insulting Heather Duke and then asking the Girl who is now stuck in a wheelchair if they wanted to go watch a movie.

In act 1 of Mean Girls we are introduced to Cady Heron who has just moved in to a new school after being home schooled in Africa and we see her struggle to settle into life at high school.  On her second day she manages to make some friends who are some of the less popular people in the school, later on in the day at lunch Cady is saved by the popular group at the school called the "Plastics" from another student harassing her and after eating lunch with them is allowed to become part of the group.  Cady's friends encourage her to join as that way they can all laugh about what is going on after school, Cady then goes out with them and learns more about the "Plastics" and what they do and finds out about a "Burn book" that they have where they have written bad things about every girl in their school.  Later on in act 1 Cady gets a crush on someone in one of her classes who happens to be one of Regina's (the head of the Plastics) exes and after Regina finds out about it she offers to talk to him about it.  Later at a Halloween part Cady sees that Regina has restarted her relationship with Cady's crush who is called Aaron which upsets Cady who leaves the party to go see her friends.

Act 2 starts with Cady and her friends deciding that they are going to try sabotage Regina's life at school, after several failed attempts they manage to persuade Regina to eat "Swedish nutrition bars" to help her loose weight when they are actually getting her to put on weight, Cady also finds out about Regina's secret relationship with another student and tells Aaron about it who then breaks up with Regina.  After Regina finds this all out we see her go to the burn book and write a page about herself in it and then turn it into the school saying that one of the plastics wrote it as they were the only 3 girls in the school who were not in the book, she also spreads it around the school leading fights in the hallways as people realise secrets have been shared.

Act 3 starts with the teachers gathering everyone for an assembly where they talk about the book and help everyone mend their friendships and work through problems, it is during this that Cady realises how much like Regina she has become and in an effort to dethrone her she has replaced her, this leads to Cady trying to fix things with Regina as she runs out of the school and as they talk Regina gets hit by a bus, this lead to rumours saying that Cady pushed her, making everyone at school hate her.  She then takes the fall for the burn book so that she could let people know about certain things that weren't true.  The film ends with a school dance where Cady gets voted queen and then gives a speech talking about how amazing everyone in the school is and reconnects with her old friends and coming to a truce with the plastics.